How To Get Rid Of Duplicates Of Music?

[Lauren Wright]

I've been trying to put my music on my Nokia Lumia 521. At first, I plugged the phone into my Surface via the USB cable provided and used File Explorer to copy my music to the microSD card I had in the phone. I had no trouble with this and was satisfied, until the next day when I found duplicates of all the songs on my phone. What was peculiar was that there weren't the same number of duplicates; one song would have 20 duplicates and another only 2. I plugged the phone back in and neither the phone or microSD card had duplicates of any songs. I have about 600 songs, but according to the phone and the Windows Phone app installed on my Surface, I have around 4000. I read some threads, and following their advice, made sure the Xbox Music cloud feature on my phone wasn't turned on, but it helped nothing. I figured I would just try to copy everything again, so I deleted all the music from the microSD card via File Explorer, but again, on my phone and the Windows Phone app, there were still 4000ish songs with duplicates. I checked both the microSD and the phone's storage, and neither had any music at all. How can I transfer all my music to the phone without these ridiculous duplicates?

 

[Laura Knotek]

Hi Lauren,

Have you seen this thread? http://forums.windowscentral.com/wi...s/222709-windows-phone-music-tips-tricks.html

Hopefully it will help with the music duplicate issues.

 

[anon(7935575)]

Here's what i did.

- reset phone after formatting card from phone only.
- sync music with Windows media player


So far faced no issue.

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 520 using Tapatalk

 

[WPhoney]

This thread has lots of suggestions to this problem. After trying for hours, I managed to get 50Gb of music on my Lumia 625 without duplicates, but I don't remember exactly what I did.... Sorry. Read the whole thread before trying anything. The vast majority of the suggestions are pointless.

http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-8/205464-duplicate-songs-when-sd-card.html

 

[icharleyM]

I thought this problem is supposed to be solved with GDR2 update

 

[Lauren Wright]

I've been away for a little, and upon checking my music again, all the music is gone. I guess it's because the Xbox Cloud feature was turned on by default, so even though I deleted the music from my microSD, the cloud hadn't finished syncing and still showed music...maybe...Anyways, I'll try the suggestions and update with results. Thanks ��

 

[Lauren Wright]

The Surface doesn't have Windows Media Player, so I switched to a Windows 7 Desktop that, last time I checked, has Windows Media Player, only to find that it for some reason no longer has it. Not under the start menu, not under the list of installed programs, and not as any type of shortcut on my task bar or desktop. I checked a Windows 7 Laptop to find the same problem. Now it's to the internet to try and download Window Media Player from somewhere -_- ...

 

[azcruz]

Anything running on 8.x has Windows Media Player, that includes the Surface Pro/2.

Sent from my Windows Phone 8S by HTC using Tapatalk

 

[Laura Knotek]

Get Windows Media Player - Microsoft Windows

 

[Lauren Wright]

I was able to get Windows Media Player to open by opening a music file...still doesn't show up under installed programs or in the start menu, but that's another issue for another day...I synced my music to my phone, and when the sync was successfully completed with supposedly no errors, I looked on my phone to find the same problem of duplicated songs -_-. Sigh. Frustration!!!

 

[Lauren Wright]

Anything running on 8.x has Windows Media Player, that includes the Surface Pro/2.

Sent from my Windows Phone 8S by HTC using Tapatalk

I have the Surface RT, and as far as I've found, I don't have Media Player and everything opens in Xbox Music.

 

[Lauren Wright]

I thought this problem is supposed to be solved with GDR2 update

According to http://http://www.nokia.com/global/support/software-update/wp8-software-update/availability-in-europe/ it's not available for the Lumia 521.

 

[azcruz]

Yes, of course if you're talking about Surface RT/2.

Windows 7, 8.x on non-ARM architecture has Windows Media Player which is what I'm pointingg out. Unless you're using N versions.

 

[Laura Knotek]

I have the Surface RT, and as far as I've found, I don't have Media Player and everything opens in Xbox Music.

See my post #9. That has the link to download Windows Media Player for Windows 7.

 

[Lauren Wright]

See my post #9. That has the link to download Windows Media Player for Windows 7.

It doesn't look like I can get it on the Surface RT. Too bad. Thanks for the link for the other two computers, though! Get Windows Media Player - Microsoft Windows

Any other suggestions as to how to transfer music without these annoying duplicates? I've started to delete the duplicates, but I can't select multiple songs on the phone, and when I use the Windows Phone app on the Surface, it refuses to delete anything, so I have to do it one by one on the phone. This time there's about 1200 songs, and I have around 600, so besides the fact that I have to delete about 600 songs one by one, every time I delete one, the list of songs automatically scrolls back up to the top, so I have to scroll all the way back down to wherever I was. Waaay too tedious and time consuming. There has to be an easier way...

 

[AUCLABruin]

I had this problem too. What I did was that I prepared all of my songs to transfer, then inserted the microSD card to the extension regular sized SD card and put that onto my PC. Then, I just drag and dropped the songs into the SD card. I then reset the phone, and then turned off syncing from the SD card and the phone. Once I inserted the card, there were no duplicates and even when I add new songs, it doesn't make them. I do not know if this is possible for you, but it's worth a shot if you can.

 

[Lauren Wright]

What exactly does resetting the phone do? Will any of my files or settings change? And how do I reset the phone?

 

[Lauren Wright]

I'm still hesitant to reset the phone, but I deleted and re-copied my music to the microSD card again, and put it in the phone to find, of course, tons of duplicates. When I took the microSD card out, I found that I had no albums, songs, genres, or playlists, but it still had all my artists saved even when I turned the phone on and off. When I click on an artist, it says there are no albums for the artist (duh). No matter how many times I un-insert and re-insert the microSD card, the peculiarity of keeping artists without a microSD and the problem of duplicates with the microSD still remain...*dramatic sigh*...

 

[WPhoney]

GDR2 has not fixed the problem and I doubt GDR3 will. I got lucky that I don't have duplicates in my device. It is deplorable for a phone in 2013 not be able to properly index MP3s. I would not recommend a WP to someone at this point.

Your options are:

a) Stop using the phone for MP3 listening.

b) Dump the phone altogether and get a used Android phone from 2010. They are more useful than a WP.

c) Be diligent and read all the suggestions posted on the thread I linked before. One of them will work for you.

 

[Lauren Wright]

Be diligent and read all the suggestions posted on the thread I linked before. One of them will work for you.

Ironically, one of the posts mentioned _not_ using the Windows Phone app, but since I hadn't tried that yet and I'm very desperate, I decided to try it anyway. It worked! No duplicates! For some reason, one of my 600ish songs won't transfer no matter how many times I try it, but I can mess with that later. I'm just happy there's no duplicates. I'm not sure if it's because I transferred to the phone and not the microSD or because I used the Windows Phone app, but hakuna matata...